A car is visible in the driveway of a damaged house. Photo / RNZ, Calvin Samuel
By Charlotte Cook of RNZ
A Tairua couple woke to screaming after a landslide narrowly missed their house in the dark of the night.
The Coromandel Peninsula was just one of five regions put into a state of emergency after a severe red rain warning hammered the East Coast of the North Island on Wednesday.
Tairua was one of the worst hit in the Coromandel, all roads in and out completely cut off, without power and limited access to water.
John Drummond has lived there, on Mount Paku in Motuhoa Rd, for decades, it’s not the first slip he’d seen but it was the biggest.
“At about midnight, my wife woke me up because she could hear some people screaming ... so we got out of bed and went over to help.
He found his elderly neighbours in dire need of assistance.
One of the occupants had made it on to the deck when the landslide took it out, sending them down about 2m into the mud.
The Drummonds helped them out down their driveway to the waiting Fire and Emergency Volunteers and an ambulance.
“They were pretty shaken up, covered in mud and wet and traumatised.”
Drummond said the couple were in hospital after being helicoptered out in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The landslide had come down both sides of the property, pushing up against the back of the house. Through the window you can see the back wall has been pushed about 2m inside the house, sending the kitchen cabinetry and fridge with it. The exterior wall of the house was bowing under the pressure.
“It was really dark. I couldn’t really see much, but there was water flowing everywhere, down the roads, off the banks, down into houses.”
A water pipe had also burst adding to the sheer volume of water running down the side of the mountain.
The bulk of the landslide stopped on Motuhoa Rd, the destroyed water tank and an upturned car were pulled down in the force and planted on top of the mountain of debris.
Fire and Emergency local volunteers said about six houses in Tairua were being assessed and were likely to be red-stickered.
Tairua Station manager Stacey Cammock was called to the emergency, but was unable to get the vehicle close enough, forcing him to wade his way into the sludge.
He said the slip was still moving, with the potential to take out another house forcing him to evacuate neighbouring properties.
Tony Jacobs was one of them.
“We were woken at 1am, fast asleep by a guy from the fire brigade with a torch shining down our hall ... I thought, what the hell does he want?
“And they said, you have to get out, the hill’s moving, you need to get dressed and get out immediately, so we were in a state of shock.”
Mud and debris littered his driveway, as water from the pipe pushed the landslide faster while evacuees made their way out.
Jacobs said, aside from the rude awakening, he was happy to report the Motuhoa Rd community and local authorities had looked after them all fabulously.
His house had no water, but after a day of slugging mud out of his neighbour’s driveway, he was looking forward to staying in his own bed and watching the tennis.
Drummond echoed the sentiment, grateful to live in a small community who looks after each other.
It’s unclear when the landslide would be able to be removed and what it would mean for the neighbouring and blocked off residents.